HAProxy

High-performance TCP and HTTP load balancer

As of 29 August 2026, HAProxy is free to use. The load balancer for very high traffic. Softwr lists it under Cloud. HAProxy is made by HAProxy Technologies, available on Linux, Self-hosted.

Visit siteVisit HAProxy

Overview

What HAProxy does

HAProxy is an open-source load balancer and proxy for TCP and HTTP applications, with a long reputation for handling very high connection volumes on modest hardware. It is used in front of some of the largest sites on the internet. Its strengths are performance and control: detailed health checking, connection queueing, rate limiting and traffic rules expressed with real precision. Its cost is a configuration language that assumes you know what you are doing, and a stats interface that is functional rather than pleasant.

What people use it for

Load balancing at traffic levels where proxy efficiency shows up in the hardware bill
Precise traffic control — rate limits, sticky sessions, complex routing rules
TCP load balancing for databases and non-HTTP services

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about HAProxy.

Configuration syntax is dense and unforgiving, with a steep initial learning curve
No automatic certificate management, unlike newer servers that treat it as default behaviour
The built-in stats page is basic, so real observability needs exporters and dashboards
A dedicated load balancer is more machinery than small deployments need

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of HAProxy

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

HAProxyvs
Nginx
Nginx: More approachable and doubles as a web server, with less specialised balancing
HAProxyvs
Caddy
Caddy: Automatic HTTPS and far simpler configuration, at lower peak throughput

Pricing

What HAProxy costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

HAProxy

Free

Full functionality
No usage limits
Community support

Capabilities

Features

High throughput
Handles very large connection counts with low CPU and memory
Layer 4 and 7
Balances raw TCP and HTTP with content-aware routing
Health checking
Detailed active and passive checks with configurable thresholds
Rate limiting and ACLs
Fine-grained traffic control expressed in configuration

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Is HAProxy free?

Yes, the community version is open source. HAProxy Technologies sells HAProxy Enterprise separately.

HAProxy or Nginx?

HAProxy is a specialist load balancer with deeper balancing and health-check features. Nginx also serves static content and is more approachable, which is why it is more common as a general web server.

Does HAProxy handle TLS certificates automatically?

No. Certificate issuance and renewal are external, unlike Caddy where it is automatic.

Keep looking

Where to go from HAProxy

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for HAProxy, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.